The Farm has won a £10m contract to provide post production services at BBC North’s MediaCityUK sites.

The three-year deal will cover sport, children’s, entertainment, religion and current affairs at fifty BBC-supplied edit desks, booths and suites at the new Salford Quays site.

Sixteen companies originally submitted tenders for the contract. Broadcast understands that the Farm fought off competition from rival facilities Deluxe 142 and SIS in the final round of the process.

Farm MD Nicky Sargent described the procurement process, which began in July 2010 as “a lot of hard work”.

“We are absolutely delighted,” she told Broadcast. “The Farm will be supplying manpower, management and craft skills. We hope to recruit heavily, and it will be a combination of people moving from London or Bristol together with a lot of new jobs,”

Sargent said the Farm would start the recruitment process immediately, with the majority of staff taking up their posts by the Autumn.

In a statement the BBC said the Farm “demonstrated the necessary understanding of delivering flexible commodity based production systems, including modern media asset management, with an effective staffing model and talent provision”.

In November, it was announced that SIS and Peel Media had secured a 10-year deal to jointly provide BBC North with studios, post and technical services at MediaCityUK.

The BBC will begin moving 2,300 posts to Salford Quays in May.

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